Public Procurement After COVID-19: A Shift Toward Less Competition or More Effectiveness?

How did public procurement structures shift with COVID-19, and did the pandemic make procurement more or less competitive? We construct a NUTS3-region-by-year panel for 32 European countries covering 2016 to 2023 from OpenTender procurement data. A normalized competition index ranks six procurement procedures from outright awards to open tenders and captures the competitiveness of each region’s procedure mix. Market size is generally associated with more competition, while the average time trend is negative. Pooled post-COVID estimates are weak, but country-specific effects are heterogeneous. Italy exhibits a strong downward trend and a sizable negative post-2020 shift. Slovenia is comparatively stable. The Germany extension indicates a marked shift toward less competitive procedures after the pandemic began. The results show why EU-wide procurement principles need to be complemented by country-specific monitoring and analysis by procurement segment.